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■  COMMUNITY  DRAMA 


^'M'    BY  PERCY  MACKAYE 


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COMMUNITY  DRAMA 


WORKS  BY  PERCY  MACKAYE 


PLA  YS 

The  Canterkury  Pilgrims.    A  Comedy. 

Jeanne  d'Arc.    A  Tragedy. 

Sappho  and  Phaon.     A  Tragedy. 

Fenris  thk  Wolf.     A  Tragedy. 

A  Garland  to  Sylvia.     A  Dramatic  Reverie. 

The  Scarecrow.     A  Tragedy  of  the  Ludicrous. 

Yankee  Fantasies.     Five  One-act  Plays. 

Mater.     An  American  Study  in  Comedy. 

Anti-Matrimony.     A  Satirical  Comedy. 

To-MoRROW.     A  Play  in  Three  Acts. 

A  Thousand  Years  Ago.   A  Romance  of  the  Orient. 

MASQUES 
Caliban.     A  Community  Masque. 
Saint  Louis.     A  Civic  Masque. 
Sanctuary.     A  Bird  Masque. 
The  New  Citizenship.    A  Civic  Ritual. 

OPERAS 

Sinbad,  the  Sailor.     A  Fantasy. 

The  Immigrants.     A  Tragedy. 

The  Canterbury  Pilgrims.    A  Comedy. 

POEMS 

The  Sistine  Eve,  and  Other  Poems. 

Uriel,  and  Other  Poems. 

Lincoln.     A  Centenary  Ode. 

The  Present  Hour.     Poems  of  War  and  Peace. 

Poems  and  Plays.     In  Two  Volumes. 

ESS  A  YS 

The  Playhouse  and  the  Play. 
The  Civic  Theatre. 
A  Substitute  for  War. 
Community  Drama.     An  Interpretation. 

ALSO  {As  Editor) 

The  Canterbury  Tales.  A  Modern  Rendering  into 

Prose. 
The  Modern  Reader's  Chaucer  (with  Professor 

J.  S.  P.  Tatlock). 


AT  ALL  BOOKSELLERS 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

Its  Motive  and  Method  of 
NEIGHBORLINESS 

An  Interpretation 
by 

PERCY  MACKAYE 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

The  Riverside  Press  Cambridge 

1917 


COPYRIGHT,    I917,    BY   PERCY   MACKAYE 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  June  iqij 


To 
P.  S. 


PREFACE 

The  present  essay  is  the  substance 
of  an  address  delivered  by  me  before 
the  American  Civic  Association  at  its 
annual  meeting,  at  the  Hotel  Willard, 
Washington,  D.C.,  December  13, 1916, 
Miss  Margaret  Woodrow  Wilson  pre- 
siding. At  that  conference  of  workers 
in  the  fields  of  public  education,  re- 
creation, and  community  organizing, 
the  experts  there  gathered  expressed 
their  very  real  enthusiasm  for  the  prac- 
ticability and  progressiveness  of  the 
ideas  which  I  sought  to  suggest  for 
their  earnest  consideration. 

vii 


PREFACE 

Those  ideas  —  for  a  new  method  of 
community  building,  for  a  dynamic, 
cooperative  means  of  education  in 
community  aims,  for  a  loyalty  to  those 
aims  at  once  spontaneous  and  disci- 
plined, for  a  purposeful  efficiency  of 
neighborliness  —  apply  not  less,  but 
more,  since  our  entrance  into  the 
World  War  with  the  exalted  purpose 
expressed  by  President  Wilson  of  help- 
ing to  make  the  world  permanently 
"  safe  for  democracy." 

Especially,  I  think,  at  this  time  they 
might  be  applied  with  excellent  results 
to  the  inspiring  task,  immense  in  its 
scope  and  meaning,  which  the  newly 
appointed    Federal    Commission    on 


VIU 


PREFACE 

Training  Camp  Activities  is  under- 
taking for  America.  That  task  is  to 
establish  "  a  great  affirmative  system, 
instead  of  a  merely  sterile  negative 
one,"  for  the  healthful  development 
of  our  nation's  young  men  under  mili- 
tary conscription,  as  an  offset  to  the 
scourging  menaces  of  drink  and  sexual 
immorality. 

Here  is  the  opportunity  for  America 
to  create  a  new  kind  of  army  —  a  new 
kind  of  community  in  arms  for  the  at- 
tainment of  democratic  world-freedom : 
an  army  in  which  '*  the  moral  equiva- 
lent of  war  "  shall  be  quickened  and 
organized  within  the  very  fabric  of 
the  fighting  machine  itself:  a  fighting 

ix 


PREFACE 

force,  in  which  virile  and  wholesome 
expression  through  cooperative  sports 
and  arts  shall  be  substituted  for  an 
outworn  ideal  of  repression,  and  go 
hand  in  hand  with  effective  martial 
discipline,  not  lessening  but  increasing 
its  efficiency. 

Besides  such  activities  within  the 
camps  themselves  as  unit  conmiuni- 
ties,  the  relationship  of  the  camps  to 
their  environs  hold  important  possi- 
bilities of  social  development. 

Concerning  these,  one  of  the  Federal 
Commissioners  ^  writes : "  A  part  of  our 
work  will  be  the  promotion  of  harmo- 

1  Dr.  Joseph  E.  Raycroft,  of  Princeton 
University,  in  the  New  York  Times  Magazine, 
Sunday,  May  20,  1917. 


PREFACE 

nious  and  beneficial  relations  between 
the  camps  and  the  neighboring  towns." 
To  cooperate  in  this  work,  a  number 
of  agencies  —  such  as  the  Y.M.C.A., 
the  Y.W.G.A.,  the  Red  Cross,  the 
churches  —  are,  he  says,  to  be  counted 
upon  "to  make  a  new  environment 
for  the  soldier  when  off  duty,  and  to 
put  life  into  an  ideal  that  will  strive 
to  return  him  finally  to  his  home  a 
better  man  than  when  he  left  it.'* 

To  these  agencies  surely  there  will 
be  added  the  expert  art  of  recreational 
expression.  Community  Drama.^ 

1  Community  Drama,  as  its  meaning  is 
here  conceived,  is  of  course  directly  bound  up 
with  the  Community  Music  Movement,  as 
that  is  being  developed  under  the  leadership 

xi 


PREFACE 

Thus  the  Motive  and  Method  sug- 
gested in  this  essay  —  the  Christian 
motive  of  efficient  '  neighborliness,' 
and  the  art  method  of  dramatic  or- 
ganization —  may  well  be  directly  ap- 
plied to  the  constructive  solution  of 
an  American  problem,  national  and 
international  in  its  implications. 

In  consonance  with  these  ideas, 
the  important  community  experiment, 
tried  with  encouraging  results  a  year 
ago  through  the  production  of  the 

in  New  York  of  Arthur  Farwell  and  Harry  H. 
Barnhart.  With  that  is  also  directly  related 
the  Community  Centre  Movement,  under  the 
leadership  of  John  Collier,  of  the  People's  Insti- 
tute, New  York,  as  well  as  many  recreational 
activities  of  the  Playgrounds  Association, 
under  the  presidency  of  Joseph  Lee. 

xii 


PREFACE 

Community  Masque  "  Caliban "  in 
New  York,  is  being  repeated,  on  an 
even  larger  scale,  in  Boston.  There, 
at  the  date  of  this  preface,  the  Caliban 
Committee  of  Greater  Boston  are 
busily  organizing  more  than  seven 
thousand  men  and  women  for  the 
production  of  "  Caliban,"  at  the  Har- 
vard Stadium,  from  June  28  to  July 
9,  for  the  monetary  benefit  of  the  Red 
Cross  and  the  Reserve  OfTicers'  Train- 
ing Corps,  Harvard  University,  and 
the  social  benefit  of  the  whole  Boston 
community. 

To  assist  the  purposes  of  the  Com- 
mittee, this  essay  is  now  published, 
for  whatever  service  it  may  render  to 

xiii 


PREFACE 

those  community  objects  in  Boston 
and  elsewhere. 

Percy  MacKaye 

Boston,  22  May  1917 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

AN  INTERPRETATION 

"Can  we  poor  human  beings  never 
realize  our  quality  without  destruc- 
tion?" 

H.  G.  Wells  asks  this  question  in  a 
recent  volume  on  the  war.^ 

And  in  a  recent  series  of  articles  ^  in 
the  "New  York  Times,"  "a  distin- 
guished publicist,"  Cosmos,  discussing 
the  basis  of  world  peace,  writes :  — 

*  Italy,  France,  and  Britain  at  War,  p.  13. 

^  Tenth  article  of  the  series,  which  has 
been  published  as  a  volume,  The  Basis  of 
World  Peace. 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

More  important  than  the  declaration 
of  rights  and  duties  af  nations,  and  more 
important  than  the  machinery  which 
may  be  erected  to  give  that  declaration 
vitality  and  force,  is  the  spirit  of  the 
peoples  who  unite  in  taking  these  steps. 

What  the  world  is  waiting  for,  and 
what  it  must  achieve  before  the  foun- 
dations of  a  durable  peace  are  securely 
laid,  is  what  President  Butler  has  well 
called  the  International  Mind  —  "that 
habit  of  regarding  the  several  nations 
of  the  civilized  world  as  friendly  and 
cooperating  equals  in  spreading  enlight- 
enment and  culture  throughout  the 
world.", 

The  International  Mind:  in  the  pro- 
cess of  achieving  that,  an  answer  may 
be  found  to  the  question  of  Wells. 

Yes,  the  quality  of  human  beings 
can  be  realized  without  destruction; 
4 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

but  it  can  never  be  realized  without 
imagination.  It  is  precisely  because 
our  peace  is  so  devoid  of  organized, 
constructive  imagination,  that  the  or- 
ganized destruction  of  war  appeals  so 
potently  to  the  imaginations  of  men, 
by  giving  scope  for  their  qualities  of 
spiritual  heroism. 

War  provides  a  method  —  a  drastic, 
compelling  method  —  for  creating  the 
national  mind.  Its  method  is  organi- 
zation—  for  competition:  the  unify- 
ing of  nations  —  against  nations. 

"What  the  world  is  waiting  for"  is 
a  method,  more  excelling,  for  creating 
the  international  mind:  a  method  of 
organization  —  for   cooperation :   the 

5 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

harmonizing  of  nations  with  nations 
—  of  communities  with  communities. 
This  does  not  imply  less  nationality  in 
our  culture,  but  more  civilized  culture 
in  our  nationalism. 

!  In  approaching  my  subject  I  can 
approach  it  in  no  less  a  sense  than  a 
world  sense:  and  I  weigh  carefully  my 
thought  when  I  say  that  "what  the 
world  is  waiting  for"  is  to  be  found,  I 
believe,  in  the  basic  method  of  social 
service  involved  in  Community  Drama. 
That  method  is  organization  —  for 
cooperation;  it  is  testable  by  the  most 
modest  beginnings,  but  the  scope  of 
its  principle  is  vast  —  or  it  is  noth- 
ing. And  it  is  not  —  nothing.  I  have 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

watched  its  seed  take  root  in  soil  that 
seemed  sterile;  I  have  seen  it  take  form 
from  ahnost  nothing,  watched  its  por- 
tentous growth,  its  magical  flowering, 
its  colossal  bearing  of  fruit  and  the 
sowing  forth  again  of  its  own  seed  in 
strong  fecundity. 

No,  the  life-  meaning  of  Community 
Drama  is  universal.  It  is  so,  because 
its  life  is  very  old  —  as  old  and  peren- 
nially young  as  humanity. 

Under  its  new  guises  in  America  it 
has  had  as  yet  small  critical  attention 
—  very  scant  philosophic  regard.  In 
a  world  of  journalism,  its  immediate 
obvious  aspects,  its  shining  banners, 
its  spectacular  color,  its  blare  of  music, 
7 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

its  thousands  massed  in  stadiums  and 
on  hillsides  —  these  aspects  indeed 
have  received  large  public  attention, 
the  hectic  publicity  accorded  to  pass- 
ing shows.  But  not  yet  its  realities  — 
its  deep,  quiet,  regenerating  realities. 
For  those  have  chiefly  concerned  a  few 
artists,  and  many,  many  plain  people, 
mostly  young  people.  But  artists  and 
young  people,  especially  when  they 
are  happy  in  what  they  are  doing,  are 
seldom  given  to  critical  valuation  of 
their  actions.  They  are  aware,  often 
intensely  aware,  of  a  great  movement 
on  which  they  are  borne  along:  but 
the  source  and  the  goal  of  their  mov- 
ing is  vague  to  them. 
8 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

Then  is  needed  the  great  interpre- 
ter— a  searching  nnagination,  critical, 
and  prophetic,  to  clarify  the  meaning 
and  purpose  of  this  living  momentum. 

That  is  to-day  what  the  social  move- 
ment vaguely  called  Pageantry  pro- 
foundly lacks  —  its  authentic  inter- 
preters. In  dramatics  and  civics  a 
thousand  routineers  glut  the  columns 
of  the  press  with  their  daily  and  weekly 
cleverness  or  platitude :  but  where  the 
great  tides  of  drama  and  civic  life  meet 
and  mingle,  to  give  birth  to  a  new  life- 
stream  for  human  intercourse,  there 
are  still  primeval  silences  of  under- 
standing, broken  only  by  the  voices 
of  a  few  prophetic  pioneers.  The  more 

9 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

pity  for  this  lack  of  interpreters  in 
America,  for  this  new  life-stream  is 
one  of  the  very  arteries  of  our  future 
democracy. 

So  it  was,  nearly  a  century  ago, 
when  the  inarticulate  gropings  of  so- 
cial democracy  were  waiting  for  a 
synthetic  expounder  to  blazon  the  phi- 
losophy and  the  vision  of  socialism. 
Then  came  Karl  Marx,  and  now  the 
great  stream  he  charted  has  been 
sounded  and  explored  by  thousands, 
and  has  taken  its  relative  place  on  the 
map  of  social  discovery. 

By  analogy,  what  is  needed  to-day 
is  a  synthetic  philosopher  for  Com- 
munity Drama  —  one  who  shall  con- 
10 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

structively  chart  its  immense  aesthetic 
and  sociological  meanings;  a  George 
Brandes  and  John  Dewey  in  one  to 
clarify  this  new-world  art  of  democ- 
racy. Yet  perhaps  even  more  than 
these  would  be  needed  to  identify  that 
amorphous  art  with  its  reality  —  in- 
stinctive religion.  For  that,  indeed,  in 
essence,  is  what  Community  Drama  is 
—  the  ritual  of  democratic  religion: 
plastic,  aspiring,  playful,  creative, 
child-like,  religious  instinct:  the  social 
religion  of  the  only  commandment  of 
Christ:  neighborliness. 

For  it  leads  to  a  very  simple  creed, 
this  community  drama  —  neighborli- 
ness :  to  love  one's  neighbor  enough  to 
11 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 
discover  God  in  him.  But  those  who 
see  God  beUeve  in  Him.  And  those 
who  beUeve  in  Him  express  their  be- 
lief, and  so  they  create  symbols  of  it; 
but  because  their  beUef  is  deep  with 
emotion,  and  with  conflict  of  emo- 
tions, they  create  dramatic  symbols  — 
dramatic  art,  communal  dramatic  art. 

And  so  we  reach  back  to  the  old 
beginnings  of  civilized  man  —  to  the 
dramatic  religion  of  early  Greece,  to 
the  dance,  the  chanted  speech,  the 
choral  song,  the  organized  pageantry 
of  cooperating  neighbors,  expressing 
the  God  in  themselves. 

It  is  the  story  of  the  folk  arts  of  all 
European  peoples.   Our  own  modern 

12 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

cultures  in  art  consist  mainly  in  rehi- 
nants  and  ruins  of  these  communal 
folk  arts,  which  the  armored  tanks  of 
Machine  Industrialism  have  left  stand- 
ing in  the  No  Man's  Land  of  National 
Competition. 

In  the  new  age  before  us,  it  is  not 
for  us,  as  individual  archaeologists,  to 
patch  and  remodel  those  ruins;  it  is 
rather  for  us,  as  cooperating  artists,  to 
build  from  the  ground  up  fresh  homes 
and  temples  of  the  communal  imagina- 
tion. 

I  wonder  if  I  can  suggest  how  this 
applies  to  community  drama  to-day. 
Consider  for  a  moment  that  consum- 
mation in  art  of  the  Antique  World  — 

13 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

the  Parthenon;  consider  one  of  the  con- 
summations of  the  Middle  Ages  —  the 
cathedral  at  Rheims.  As  a  result  of  the 
competitions  of  the  merely  national 
mind,  the  cannon  of  the  Turks  have 
left  in  ruins  the  one,  the  bombs  of  the 
Prussians  the  other. 

Now  I  think  it  has  never  been  em- 
phasized —  at  least,  to  point  a  mod- 
ern moral  in  social  art  —  that  each 
of  these  temples  (itself  the  perfect 
flowering  of  many  human  generations) 
was  the  home  and  holy  place  of  — 
community  drama.  In  the  marble 
friezes  of  the  Parthenon  Phidias  por- 
trayed—  what?  Phases  of  the  dra- 
matic rites  of  his  ancient  community; 

14 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

on  the  cathedral  at  Rheims  are  sculp- 
tured —  have  we  ever  thought  about 
it?  —  actors  in  dramatic  rituals  of  a 
mediaeval  community. 

These  facts  are  not  often  interpreted 
by  modern  professors  of  drama,  or  by 
dramatic  critics  on  Broadway;  but  are 
they  not  pregnant  with  meaning  for 
our  own  to-morrow  ?  For  me  at  least 
they  mean  this :  that  the  golden  age  of 
community  life  and  art  does  not  lie  be- 
hind us,  but  before  us — that  the  same 
colossal  impulses  of  social  art  which 
created  those  perfect  examples,  are  in- 
stincts perennially  human,  and  may  be 
organized  again,  by  will  and  imagina- 
tion, to  still  nobler  consummations. 

15 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

So  on  the  No  Man's  Land  of  to- 
day's waste,  destruction  and  industrial 
anarchy,  the  community  dramatists 
of  to-morrow  —  the  engineers,  archi- 
tects, dancers,  musicians,  artists,  lead- 
ers of  rehgious  play  —  shall  organize 
in  beauty  the  communities  of  Every 
Man's  Land. 

A  far  cry  —  is  it?  —  from  that  crude 
little  pageant,  last  week,  in  the  subur- 
ban slums!  A  far  cry  indeed;  yet  it  is 
only  a  far  cry  that  is  heard  by  the 
gods.  And  often  the  gods'  answer 
comes  quickly. 

In  the  autumn  of  1913  such  a  far 

cry  was  called  in  the  community  of 

St.  Louis  from  a  little  group  of  some 
16 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

dozen  citizens.  On  five  nights  of  the 
following  May,  half  a  million  specta- 
tors, and  seven  thousand  participants, 
shared  there  in  a  civic  ritual  of  their 
own.  *'  Oberammergau ! "  said  one  who 
sat  in  the  audience  (Mr.  Ben  Greet) ; 
**I  can  think  of  nothing  else  than 
Oberammergau,  to  compare  this  to." 
And  more  than  two  years  afterward, 
the  Mayor  of  St.  Louis  (Henry  W. 
Kiel)  telegraphed  to  the  Caliban  Com- 
mittee of  Greater  Boston:  — 

The  Pageant  and  Masque  produced 
in  Saint  Louis  in  1914  was  of  incalcu- 
lable benefit  to  the  city.  The  produc- 
tion received  the  hearty  support  of  the 
citizens  and  instilled  in  them  a  new  civic 
spirit  which  resulted  in  the  adoption  of 
17 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

a  new  city  charter  and  the  voting  of 
bonds  for  the  completion  of  our  muni- 
cipal bridge  where  similar  bond  issues 
had  been  refused  before. 


One  night  at  that  time,  after  the 
third  performance,  I  stood  talking  with 
one  of  the  Scotch  group,  recruited 
from  all  parts  of  the  city.  "A  funny 
thing  this,"  he  said  to  me;  " I  wouldna 
have  thought  till  now  that  those  dagoes 
could  be  such  damn  good  fellers.  We  're 
proposin'  to  form  a  permanent  club  — 
us  Scotch  and  the  dagoes  and  German 
lads  —  just  to  keep  in  touch  and  not 
let  us  forget  this." 

And  those  of  twenty  nationalities 
who  sang  together  there  in  the  com- 

18 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

munity  chorus  are  still  singing  together 
—  pemianently  organized. 

After  all,  the  International  Mind 
needs  no  travel  to  foster  it:  here  im 
America,  it  might  be  made  a  hardy 
home-product,  by  a  sprinkling  of  the 
right  soul  mixture:  two  parts  imagi- 
nation, and  one  part  patience  —  is  a 
good  mixture. 

Neighborliness  in  a  little  town  may 
beget  the  neighborliness  of  nations. 
The  International  Mind  is  the  neigh- 
borly mind,  though  the  neighborhood 
be  but  a  village;  but  the  merely  na- 
tional mind  is  the  unneighborly  mind, 
though  the  nation  boast  its  hundred 
millions.    Let  me  not  be  misunder- 

19 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

stood.  Nationality  is  a  precious  thing; 
solidarity  of  national  spirit  is  an  in- 
spiring thing;  but  the  spirit  of  nation- 
ality need  not  be  —  it  must  not  be  — 
opposed  to  the  spirit  of  humanity. 
Whenever  it  becomes  so,  every  true 
patriot  must  —  for  his  country's  sake 
— rebel  from  it  to  this  larger  allegiance ; 
for  to  serve  one's  country  well  is  to 
help  it  serve  the  world. 

The  difference  is  between  mine  and 
ours.  My  country,  my  town,  my  flag, 
my  culture  —  this  attitude  incar- 
nates the  very  spirit  of  egoistic  un- 
neighborliness;  but  our  country,  our 
town,  our  flag,  our  culture  —  this  spirit 
implies   that  sharing  of  one's  own 

20 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

which  recognizes  the  world  as  one  com- 
munity of  neighbors. 

But  this  is  the  very  watchword  of 
community  drama.  ''My  pageant"  is 
inconceivable.  "Our  show"  is  the  typ- 
ical vernacular  of  every  civic  festival. 

There  is,  however,  this  tragic  defect 
in  neighborliness,  that  it  is  likely  to  be 
slack  and  static,  whereas  its  opposite 
tends  to  be  dynamic  and  thorough. 

War  is  the  efficiency  of  unneighbor- 
liness.  Community  Drama  seeks  the 
efficiency  of  neighborliness.  It  seeks  to 
provide  —  and,  rightly  organized,  it 
does  provide  —  a  substitute  for  in- 
effectual goodwill  in  the  effectual  def- 
inite processes  of  cooperative  art. 

21 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

It  takes  its  first  hints  from  child- 
hood. Children  are  nearly  always  def- 
inite and  cooperative.  When  child 
neighbors  meet,  they  play  together; 
that  is,  each  relates  himself  to  a  com- 
munity process;  or  if  they  squabble, 
they  cooperate  in  groups  to  do  so.  The 
games  of  childhood,  modern  survivals 
of  ancient  folk  art  (when  they  have 
not  been  perverted  by  a  spirit  of  mili- 
tary nationalism),  are,  then,  first  les- 
sons in  community  drama. 

**Here  we  go  round  the  mulberry 
bush!"  —  not  *'here  /  go  round,"  but 
*'we"  It  is  always  "we,"  among  chil- 
dren :  we  small  neighbors,  linked  hand 
in  hand,  each  self-subordinated  but 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

definitely  related,  in  rhythm  and  line 
and  motion,  to  the  larger,  self-includ- 
ing circle  —  symbol  of  the  world  itself. 
The  production  of  the  "CEdipus"  of 
Sophocles  is  but  a  perfect  maturing  of 
such  childhood  art. 

So  from  as  little  and  homely  a  thing 
as  a  "mulberry  bush"  we  may  culti- 
vate and  gather  fruit  of  the  Interna- 
tional Mind. 

And  now  I  hope  I  shall  not  be  con- 
strued as  meaning  that  all  which  is 
needed  to  solve  the  World  War  is  to 
vote  a  general  May  festival.  (Such 
has  been  the  fate  of  other  comments  of 
mine  on  "A  Substitute  for  War.") 

I  will  add,  then,  rather  obviously, 

23 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

that  I  am  referring  for  the  moment 
not  to  May  festivals,  nor  to  Central 
Powers  and  Allies,  but  to  a  natural  in- 
stinct in  childhood  —  the  play  instinct 
of  neighborhness  —  which,  if  culti- 
vated scientifically,  for  some  genera- 
tions, might  well  revolutionize  society 
by  extirpating  the  unneighborly  causes 
of  war. 

But  this  task  itself  is  no  child's  play. 
For  to  carry  onward  this  cultivation 
over  the  borders  of  childhood  into  the 
leisure  hours  of  a  weary  and  disillu- 
sioned maturity  of  toiling  millions  — 
that  becomes  a  task  for  expert  science, 
the  science  of  cooperative  expression 
which  is  dramatic  art;  a  task  as  vari- 

24 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

ous  and  universal  in  scope  as  the  labors 
of  engineering  and  architecture. 

This  science  or  art  (which  you  will) 
has  for  some  hundreds  of  years  of  the 
Traditional  Drama  of  Modern  Europe 
been  the  expert  servant  of  Commer- 
cialism, in  the  task  of  catering  amuse- 
ment to  the  leisure  chiefly  of  the  upper 
and  middle  classes.  So  it  has  charmed 
and  mystified  the  world  for  centuries. 
So  it  is  still  very  busy  and  expert  on 
Broadway  and  the  Strand  and  in  the 
capitals  of  Europe. 

But  now,  in  our  twentieth  century, 
here  in  America,  the  social  workers  of 
democracy  are  just  beginning  to  see 
that  this  science  of  the  Magician, 

25 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

whose  scope  includes  both  Harlequin 
and  Hamlet,  presents  an  expert  meth- 
od to  achieve  their  own  different  end 
and  object  —  the  regeneration  of  the 
leisure  of  all  classes. 

Why  not,  then,  apply  it  to  this  ob- 
ject? They  have  begun  to  do  so,  with 
encouraging  results.  Speaking  simply 
from  my  own  experience,  as  author  or 
director  or  both,  I  have  been  witness 
to  those  results  in  at  least  three  large- 
scale  festival  tests :  the  first  at  Glouces- 
ter, Massachusetts,  in  1908,  the  sec- 
ond at  St.  Louis,  in  1914,  the  third  at 
New  York,  in  1916  (the  production  of 
"Caliban"). 

Concerning  these   I  have  written 

26 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

elsewhere.  To  touch  on  their  many- 
sidedness  here  is  beyond  my  present 
scope.  But  it  is  significant  to  mention 
that  one  of  the  community  results  of 
*' Caliban"  in  New  York  was  the  for- 
mation there  of  a  permanent  asso- 
ciation of  those  connected  with  its 
production  headed  by  the  Mayor's 
committee,  whose  chairman,  Mr.  Otto 
H.  Kahn,  in  launching  the  new  associa- 
tion, was  warmly  supported  by  social 
thinkers  as  widely  divergent  as  Mr. 
James  M.  Beck  and  Mr.  Morris  Hill- 
quit. 

On  a  smaller  scale  I  have  watched 
the  same  principles  at  work  —  nota- 
bly in  the  application  of  the  theatre's 
27 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

art  to  social  service  for  a  great  national 
and  international  cause  —  the  conser- 
vation of  birds.  In  1913  "Sanctuary," 
a  bird  masque,  was  produced  some 
twenty  miles  from  a  railway  at  the 
bird  sanctuary  of  Ernest  Harold 
Baynes  in  the  little  town  of  Meriden, 
New  Hampshire.  Since  then,  that 
little  masque  has  met  its  social-service 
test  by  definitely  establishing  more 
than  a  hundred  bird-clubs  and  numer- 
ous sanctuaries  throughout  the  States, 
and  by  enlisting  the  participation  of 
over  four  thousand  children  in  the 
masque  itself. 

What,  then,  is  the  psychology  of  this 
new  application  of  the  art  of  the  thea- 

28 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

tre  to  social  service?  What  spiritual 
change  does  this  new  method  of  social 
science  achieve,  or  seek  to  achieve,  in 
community  life? 

This:  to  construct  and  make  per- 
manent fresh  channels  for  social  con- 
sciousness; to  convert  the  mentality 
of  competition  into  the  mentality  of 
cooperation;  to  create,  in  every  home 
community,  habits  of  the  International 
Mind. 

But  more  than  a  technique  of  coop- 
eration, does  the  method  involved  in 
Community  Drama  give  scope  for 
developing  that  *' quality"  in  human 
beings,  which  undoubtedly  is  devel- 
oped by  the  searching  tests  of  war, 
29 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

and  concerning  which  Sarah  Bernhardt 
writes  of  the  soldiers  of  France,  who 
attended  her  dramatic  performances 
on  the  battle  front :  — 

They  did  not  sufTer  in  the  tragedy  of 
the  play;  they  rose  to  it.  They  did  not 
cry  with  watery  tears  that  streamed 
down  their  faces;  the  tears  just  filled 
their  eyes  so  that  they  could  see  better 
the  great  destiny  of  their  own  lives. 

If  the  meaning  of  this  "quality" 
implies  the  happy  rendering  of  human 
souls  in  service  to  a  cause  infinitely 
larger  than  themselves,  beneficial  to 
the  world  through  their  own  commu- 
nity; if  it  implies  increased  initiative, 
energizing  of  the  will,  the  discipline 
of  patience,  the  poise  of  self-restraint, 

30 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 
the  releasing  growth  of  self-expression, 
and  the  spiritualizing  ardor  of  self- 
sacrifice —  yes,  all  of  these  qualities 
of  the  great  "quality"  heroism  are  as 
implicit  in  the  social  meaning  of  Com- 
munity Drama  as  in  that  of  war.  That 
both  seldom  measure  up  to  the  full 
standards  of  their  quality  is  as  true  of 
the  one  as  of  the  other.  Of  Commu- 
nity Drama,  at  least,  the  worst  that 
can  be  uttered  of  its  failures  is  the 
stigma  of  flamboyant  and  ineffectual 
goodwill;  whereas  the  reverse  image 
of  war's  heroism  is  unutterable  bru- 
tality. 

During  the  rehearsals  of  the  Masque 
of  St.  Louis,  the  young  man  who  en- 

31 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

acted  the  part  of  St.  Louis  was  nearly 
always  enthusiastically  prompt.  The 
month  was  May.  He  was  a  medical 
student.  His  final  examinations,  on 
which  his  professional  career  might 
depend,  came  the  first  of  June.  Yet  he 
was  never  absent.  One  day,  however, 
about  ten  minutes  late,  he  rushed  in, 
out  of  breath. 

"Sorry,  sir,  to  be  late,"  he  said. 

"What  was  the  matter?" 

"Beg  pardon,  sir,"  he  answered,  "I 
—  I  got  married,  —  I  just  came  from 
the  church." 

Hastening  from  the  altar  to  enroll  in 
khaki  has  grown  common  for  young 
men  in  these  days.  This  young  man 

32 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

was  perhaps  the  first  to  hasten  from 
the  altar  to  his  post  of  discipline  —  in 
a  Community  Drama.  Prophetically, 
perhaps,  he  may  not  be  the  last.  To 
him,  his  community  —  a  far  greater 
concern  than  his  private  affairs,  a 
wedding  breakfast,  or  a  doctor's  de- 
gree —  his  community  had  called  him. 
That  was  enough.  His  reply  was 
wholly  spontaneous,  but  it  was  none 
the  less  responsible,  definite  and  dis- 
ciplined. There  are  no  court  martials 
in  community  masques;  personal  re- 
sponsibility and  public  opinion  take 
their  place.  If  St.  Louis  the  Actor 
had  deserted  the  Masque,  St.  Louis 
the  City  would  have  disowned  him; 

33 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

but  of  course  he  would  never  have 
dreamed  of  deserting. 

At  the  production  of  "CaUban"  in 
New  York,  the  community  chorus  sat 
concealed  above  the  stage,  wholly  out 
of  sight  of  the  performances.  After 
the  last  performance,  one  of  the  sing- 
ers, whom  I  had  never  met,  a  shop- 
girl, came  to  me  and  said,  with  deep 
feeling :  — 

"Why  has  it  got  to  end?" 

"You've  enjoyed  seeing  it?"  I  asked 
tentatively. 

*'0h,  seeing  it;  I  didn't  mean  that," 
she  answered.  "I  mean,  just  being  in 
it  —  singing  with  the  others." 

"But  not  seeing  it?"  I  asked  again. 

34 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 
"Oh,  no,  I've  never  seen  it.  I  sing 
alto,  and  there  were  n't  enough  altos 
to  be  spared  to  get  off  and  see  it.  But 
I'll  never  get  over  the  joy  of  being  in 
it  as  long  as  I  live.  Things  are  differ- 
ent now.  It  was  wonderful.  I  wanted 
to  thank  you." 

Indeed,  it  was  wonderful:  Shut 
away  from  the  show  itself,  with  some 
hundreds  of  others,  in  a  crowded 
wooden  loft,  not  even  her  name  in  the 
long  lists  on  the  programme  —  but, 
singing,  and  "in  it!"  I  wanted  to 
thank  her,  but  I  could  n't  if  I  'd  known 
how.  She  had  hurried  away,  weeping. 
These  are  but  two  instances,  out  of 
thousands  (many  more  poignant),  of 

35 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

a  kind  of  education  in  human  "qual- 
ity," which  our  educators  and  states- 
men have  too  long  ignored. 

There  is,  in  brief,  a  hardihood  born 
of  joy,  as  well  as  of  pain,  resulting  even 
more  in  social  good,  provided  it  be 
submitted  to  the  tests  of  social  disci- 
pline. That  discipline  is  found  in  art, 
community  art,  for  which  the  art  of 
the  theatre  is  capable  of  providing  the 
supreme  method.  That  art  itself  is 
expertness,  discipline,  efficiency,  organ- 
ization to  the  nth  power  —  or  it  is 
nothing.  And  that  it  is  not  —  nothing, 
many  hundreds  of  years  of  infinitely 
varied  resourcefulness  have  given 
proof  —  behind  the  scenes. 

36 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

Now  the  time  has  struck  for  that 
expert  art  to  come  forth  in  the  open  — ■ 
for  the  roof  of  the  traditional  theatre 
to  be  undomed  and  let  in  the  ancient 
stars,  for  its  walls  to  be  pushed  back 
by  a  million  aspiring  arms  of  the  peo- 
ple, till  the  soul  of  the  community  per- 
forms its  magic  rites  behind  the  scenes 
as  splendidly  as  among  the  inspired 
congregators  of  the  amphitheatre. 

Outside  of  those  traditional  walls 
the  people  are  surging  in  an  amazing 
civic  consciousness.  Out  of  a  mighty 
need,  our  people  are  crying  out  for  co- 
operation —  a  valid  means  of  coopera- 
tion—  as  never  before;  but  they  do 
not  yet  realize  that  the  doors  of  those 

37 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

thousands  of  commercial  playhouses, 
which  call  them  nightly  by  millions, 
enticing  billions  of  their  dollars  annu- 
ally—  that  those  doors  lead  inward 
to  a  laboratory  of  art,  that  has  nothing 
inherently  to  do  with  commerce,  the 
art  of  the  theatre,  which  offers  them 
an  expert,  scientific  method  of  social 
cooperation  as  far  in  advance  of  the 
dull  and  bungling  methods  of  tradi- 
tional civics  as  the  automobile  out- 
dates  the  one-horse  shay. 

There  in  the  art  of  the  theatre  our 
social  workers  should  delay  no  longer 
to  search  for  what  they  are  seeking; 
there  emphatically  our  organizers  of 
pageants  must  look  for  their  expert 

38 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

leaders,  if  the  pageantry  movement  in 
America  is  to  rise  permanently  to  its 
rightful  power  of  social  regeneration, 
and  not  peter  out  through  the  failures 
of  a  glorious  goodwill  to  be  as  glori- 
ously efTicient. 

This  cannot  be  emphasized  too 
much :  the  art  of  pageantry  is  the  art 
of  the  theatre,  or  it  is  nothing.  That 
is  why  it  has  often  seemed  to  be  noth- 
ing, when  its  organizers  have  failed  to 
realize  the  nature  of  what  they  were 
organizing. 

That,  indeed,  is  why  I  think  the 
name  itself,  Pageantry,  is  misleading; 
for  pageantry,  in  its  right  meaning,  is 
but  one  phase,  and  not  at  all  the  most 

39 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

important  phase,  of  this  cooperative 
art  of  the  theatre;  and  that  is  why  I 
greatly  prefer  the  name  Community 
Dramay  to  designate  both  the  move- 
ment and  the  method,  which  are  in- 
volved in  this  new  American  relation 
of  art  to  democracy. 

Once  realizing,  then,  that  in  this 
movement  and  method  we  are  con- 
cerned with  an  expert  art,  we  shall 
realize  that  its  destiny  will  depend 
upon  expert  artists  as  community 
leaders.  We  must  be  no  more  toler- 
ant of  bad  art  than  of  bad  civics,  for 
bad  art  is  bad  sociology  and  bad  edu- 
cation. 

If  it  is  to  achieve  its  constructive 
40 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

ideals  of  peace,  Community  Drama 
must  be  organized  with  the  perma- 
nency and  trained  efficiency  of  the 
regular  army  —  for  it  represents  the 
beginnings  of  an  army  of  peace.  It 
cannot  be  made  in  committees,  or  by 
committees;  in  its  early  stages,  it  must 
indeed  be  fostered  by  committees,  but 
it  can  only  be  made  by  trained  crea- 
tive artists,  expert  in  the  art  of  the 
theatre  and  inspired  by  the  spirit  of 
the  conmiunity.  Only  so  can  the  art 
spirit  inherent  in  every  community 
find  its  authentic  leadership. 

These  artists  themselves  must  be 
social-minded;  the  committees  must 
be  art-minded.  The  artist  leaders  are 

41 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

the  officers  of  the  staff,  under  one 
director  general;  the  anny  they  lead 
is  recruited  from  the  community  on 
the  largest  scale  practicable.  The  com- 
mittees are  the  volunteer  citizens,  who 
help  to  supply  this  staff  and  army 
of  art  with  recruits,  subalterns,  eco- 
nomic supplies,  production  grounds, 
housing,  etc. 

For  a  national  community  drama  — 
with  the  growth  of  this  movement  in 
the  future  —  a  national  civic  theatre 
would  appropriately  be  responsible  for 
the  staff,  and  the  government  itself 
for  the  committees. 

The  multitudinous  aspects  —  eco- 
nomic,  artistic,  sociologic  —  of  such 

42 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

organization  are  not  within  my  pres- 
ent compass.  I  have  dealt,  by  sug- 
gestion, with  a  few  in  my  book  on 
"The  Civic  Theatre."*  Here  I  can  only 
emphasize  the  central  thought  of  my 
subject. 

Neighborliness:  I  would  like  to  come 
back  to  that  word  and  thought,  and 
repeat  it  with  the  word  drama.  Neigh- 
borliness and  drama,  the  two  are  so 
seldom  encountered  on  Forty-second 
Street! 

And  yet,  even  in  the  conmiercial- 
ized  world  of  amusement,  what  else  is 
it  often  but  the  vague,  lonely  yearn- 

1  The  Civic  Theatre,  Mitchell  Kennerley, 
New  York. 

43 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

ing  to  be  neighbor  to  some  one,  which 
draws  many  idle  thousands  from  the 
hotels  to  the  playhouses,  and  more 
working  thousands  from  homes  of  the 
poor  —  mothers  with  their  knitting 
and  children,  boys  with  their  chums, 
men  with  their  cronies  and  sweethearts 
—  to  crowd  the  dim-lit  caverns  of  the 
movies? 

But  none  of  these  take  part  in  — 
none  of  these  create  the  illusions  of 
their  amusement.  There  in  the  houses  of 
commerce  is  no  ritual :  there  is  merely 
a  mute  spectatorship,  paid  for  to  those 
who  know  and  care  nothing  for  that 
nudging,  dumb  aspiration  to  become 
neighbors. 

44 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 
But  with  Community  Drama,  there 
it  is  otherwise.  There  is  participation; 
there  is  creative  expression;  there  is 
neighborly  ritual.  For  conmiunity 
drama  is  nothing  else  than  the  tech- 
nique of  neighborliness  —  the  art,  par 
excellence,  of  resolving  the  estrange- 
ment and  conflict  of  social  elements 
into  harmony. 

Dealing  with,  and  appealing  to, 
groups,  it  is  then  essentially  an  art 
of  symbolism:  for  only  a  symbol  car- 
ries meaning  in  the  large,  to  a  mul- 
titude, and  by  a  symbol  only  can  a 
multitude  cooperate  to  express  an 
emotion  in  common. 
Neighborliness    —    symbolism   — 

45 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

drama:  these  three.  In  our  new  ritual 
of  democracy,  the  last  only  is  added 
to  the  master  method  of  the  great  sym- 
bolist of  Nazareth,  to  complement  and 
organize  for  our  day  and  race  the  sim- 
ple message  of  his  one  social  command- 
ment. 

Indeed,  if  the  inheritance  of  Greek 
culture  had  permeated  the  race  of 
Palestine  in  the  days  of  Christ,  Jesus 
himself  must  have  become  the  mighti- 
est of  dramatists,  as  he  was  the  great- 
est of  moral  symbolists;  for  to  attain 
the  community  objects  of  his  teach- 
ing, he  could  not  have  ignored,  and 
the  poet  in  him  must  soon  have  mas- 
tered, the  technique  of  assembled  mul- 

46 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

titudes  created  by  ^Eschylus  and 
Sophocles.  "The  Good  Samaritan," 
"The  Casting  of  the  First  Stone," 
"The  Things  which  are  Caesar's,"  — 
these  might  have  survived  to-day  as 
the  texts  of  dramas  once  chanted, 
danced,  and  acted  in  the  people's 
theatres  of  Jerusalem  —  if  the  dra- 
matic inheritance  of  Euripides  had 
been  available  to  Jesus. 

With  these  things  in  mind,  then, 
interpreting  the  essence  of  my  sub- 
ject as  I  see  it,  my  ideal  of  commu- 
nity drama  is  this :  By  means  of  large 
and  nobly  sensuous  symbolism,  to  har- 
monize the  complex  art  inheritances  of 

47 


COMMUNITY  DRAMA 

drama  with  the  simplicity  of  Christ's 
social  message,  for  the  inspiration  and 
expression  of  growing  democracy. 

In  brief,  splendidly  and  efTiciently — 
to  be  neighbors. 


THE  END 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

Some  Accounts  of  the  Production  of 
a  Community  Drama 

In  reference  to  the  New  York  1916 
production  of  "Caliban,"  mentioned  in 
the  foregoing  essay,  the  following  ex- 
cerpts from  accounts  of  the  event  in  the 
New  York  press  at  the  time  may  be  of 
pertinence  for  the  reader. 

New  York  took  a  long  step  ahead  of  the 
rest  of  the  dramatic  world  last  night  with  the 
presentation  of  Percy  MacKaye's  Masque, 
"Caliban." 

Nothing  quite  so  magnificent  has  ever  been 
shown  in  this  city  or  in  the  country.  For  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  arts  of  the 
theater  it  is  America  that  has  evolved  a  new 
dramatic  form,  as  potential  in  its  way  as  any 
of  the  products  of  modern  Europe.  A  New 
York  poet,  aided  by  fellow-artists  and  the 
men,  women,  and  children  of  this  big  and 

51 


APPENDIX 

busy  city,  conceived  and  visualized  for  15,000 
spectators  at  a  single  performance  a  pageant 
drama  that  will  accomplish  but  half  its  pur- 
pose if  it  fails  to  revolutionize  the  theater  and 
dramatic  art  in  many  of  its  aspects.  Purely  as 
a  community  undertaking,  the  production  of 
"  Caliban  "  was  unique. 

The  Masque  would  have  been  a  tremendous 
success  if  all  the  seats  in  the  Stadium,  which 
had  been  doubled  for  the  purpose,  had  re- 
mained empty. 

We  have  seen  the  Russian  ballet,  the  color- 
ful dance  drama,  combining  music,  movement, 
and  color;  we  have  seen  the  Greek  classics  re- 
vived in  a  new  manner  by  Granville  Barker 
in  the  big  outdoors;  we  have  had  an  Isadora 
Duncan  Dionysian  festival  indoors;  we  have 
seen  the  wonderful  art  of  Joseph  Urban;  we 
have,  in  short,  followed  the  new  workers  in 
the  theater  in  all  their  brilliant  achievements, 
but  last  night  an  audience  saw  for  the  first 
time  a  coordination  of  all  these  forces  —  a  pro- 
duction that  combined  within  its  scope  all 
that  is  best  in  the  work  of  the  creators  of 
beauty  in  the  theater.  It  was  a  true  history 
of  the  arts  of  the  theater,  in  which  all  these 
arts  in  their  most  improved  forms  were  em- 

52 


APPENDIX 

ployed;  yet  the  Masque  had  a  form  and 
method  all  its  own.  That  is  why  " Caliban" 
is  unique,  and  that  is  why  its  creator,  Percy 
MacKaye,  stands  today  as  the  foremost 
worker  in  the  American  theater,  a  man  who 
cannot  be  ignored  henceforth  in  recording  the 
evolution  of  the  art  of  the  theater.  —  Brook- 
lyn Eagle. 

The  15,000  persons  who  journeyed  from 
every  corner  of  the  city  at  sundown  to  the 
vast  open-air  theater  on  the  Heights,  found 
prepared  for  them  there  an  extraordinary 
pageant,  a  spectacle  of  memorable  beauty. 
The  staggering  undertaking  had  been  carried 
through  with  no  visible  mishaps  worth  men- 
tioning. The  Masque  is  a  success,  and  remains 
a  notable  achievement.  It  was  a  fine  thing 
to  have  done.  It  is  an  unforgettable  thing  to 
see.  —  New  York  Times. 

In  scope,  in  beauty,  and  in  large  significance 
it  fulfilled  and  surpassed  all  that  had  been 
promised  for  it.  With  almost  magical  effects 
its  scenes  and  actions  reached  back  into  the 
cycles  and  centuries  of  antiquity,  and  voiced 
or  visualized  them  for  the  awed  thousands  in 
the  audience.    Something  of  the  majesty  of 

53 


APPENDIX 

a  ceremonial  entered  into  the  enactment  of 
this  classic  Masque;  the  multitudes  partici- 
pating broadened  it  into  a  carnival  fete;  a 
play  it  was,  an  epical  drama,  in  which  antiq- 
uity and  modernity  joined  hands  and  danced 
upon  the  "yellow  sands"  of  now,  within  the 
outward  circle  of  eternity.  —  New  York 
Morning  Telegraph. 

It  was  little  less  than  a  stroke  of  genius  to 
blend  a  basic  allegory  of  the  human  soul  with 
the  majestic  movement  of  drama  through 
the  civilized  ages. 

Such  an  achievement  is  surely  a  foretaste 
of  the  eventful  realization  of  the  democratic 
ideal,  when  art  will  be  made  not  only  for  the 
people,  but  also  by  the  people,  and  all  the 
people  will  cooperate  to  make  the  common 
life  more  beautiful  until  the  communal  life 
itself  shall  become  a  living  work  of  art.  — 
New  York  American. 

The  wonderful  pageants  of  the  interludes 
are  sights  never  to  be  forgotten.  No  one  who 
cares  a  whit  for  the  art  of  the  theater  should 
fail  to  see  this  most  remarkable  community 
masque.  —  New  York  Evening  Sun. 

54 


APPENDIX 

The  story  and  plot  are  simplicity  itself. 

The  attendance  at  the  "Caliban"  perform- 
ances at  the  City  College  Stadium  raises  the 
question  of  enlarging  the  Stadium  for  similar 
community  uses  in  the  future.  That  this  vast 
shrine  of  athletic  sports  should  have  been  ren- 
dered inadequate  not  by  football  but  by  the  pro- 
duction of  drama  and  pageantry  is  a  curious 
outcome.  —  New  York  World. 

The  production  proved  remarkably  success- 
ful for  the  manner  in  which  it  fulfilled  its  func- 
tion of  being  a  community  masque,  enlisting 
the  services  of  people  from  every  section  of  the 
city,  geographically  and  socially,  and  in  the 
matter  of  obtaining  public  support. 

It  is  estimated  that  135,000  persons  had 
seen  the  Masque.  The  demand  for  seats  had 
been  so  great  that  several  extra  performances 
were  added.  —  New  York  Times. 

"  The  most  wonderful  spectacle  I  have  ever 
seen,"  said  my  companion  as,  engulfed  in  the 
crowd,  we  moved  slowly  out  of  the  Stadium. 

"  Caliban:  By  the  Yellow  Sands,"  should  be 
given  again  and  again.  To  the  stadiums  and 
the  parks  of  our  democracy  "  Caliban  "  will, 
I  hope,  introduce  a  form  of  entertainment 

55 


APPENDIX 

equaling  in  popularity  and  surpassing  in 
beauty  and  wholesomeness  the  vast  spectacles 
of  the  Roman  Coliseum.  —  Ernest  Hamlin 
Abbott,  in  "  The  Outlook." 

And  out  there  in  the  starlight  at  the  Stadium, 
under  the  open  sky  and  in  the  amphitheater, 
black  with  people,  and  the  great  arc  lights 
flashing  on  the  three  stages  of  the  pageant 
as  community  group  after  community  group 
passed  in  review  —  the  Pan-Hellenic  League, 
the  East  Side  Settlements,  the  Greenwich 
Villagers,  the  Bronx  district,  the  schools,  the 
representatives  of  all  races,  classes,  and  con- 
ditions in  the  great  city  —  I  saw  the  benig- 
nant ghost  of  Steele  MacKaye  looking  down 
on  his  dream  come  true  through  his  son.  — 
Henry  E.  Dixey,  in  "  The  Chicago  Sunday 
Herald." 

It  ranks  in  the  field  of  spirit  with  the  epoch- 
making  inventions  in  the  field  of  material 
things. 

Percy  MacKaye  has  linked  the  pageant 
ambition  with  an  ambition  no  less  than 
Hellenic  —  in  the  mood  of  Plato  and  Soph- 
ocles. —  John  Collier,  in  "  The  Survey." 

56 


APPENDIX 

The  production  deserves  to  be  recorded  as 
a  civic  event  of  almost  unexampled  magnitude, 
achieved  by  the  concerted  effort  of  all  classes 
of  a  great  community.  Mr.  MacKaye  has  suc- 
ceeded in  achieving  the  apparently  impos- 
sible. —  Clayton  Hamilton,  in  "  Vogue." 

The  Masque  leaves  immense  impressions 
on  my  mind.  It  is  in  effect  inspiring,  gigantic, 
grand.  One's  reflections  broadly  encompass 
a  picture  of  the  evolution  of  man  from  his 
brutish  nature  to  the  appreciation  of  the 
power  of  love  in  its  highest  by  the  civilization 
conceived  by  art. 

Two  hours  or  more  of  beautiful  visions,  of 
beautiful  trysts.  To  many  present  its  inspira- 
tion was  akin  to  the  good  to  the  human  soul 
of  a  great  and  glorious  religious  picture  of 
pageant  upon  pageant  such  as  no  one  man 
alone  has  ever  seen,  yet  such  as  this  old  world 
has  borne  —  harmonious  color  and  move- 
ment, samplers  of  physique  and  soul,  which  we 
apprehend  is  man's  true  birthright,  created 
by  him,  built  upon  the  apprehension  that 
something  burned  within  him  that  would 
make  him  greater  than  the  brutes! 

One  might  take  one's  eyes  from  the  pag- 


APPENDIX 

eantry  without  losing  its  effect:  crescents  of 
colors,  with  18,000  human  beings  in  full  view; 
the  blue,  star-dented  sky,  the  rays  of  blue, 
amber  and  gold,  and  pink  from  the  lighting 
towers,  the  hush  and  reverent  expectancy  of 
that  spellbound,  multitudinous  audience,  a 
gentle  breeze  to  fan  the  garments  of  the  play- 
ers into  graceful  folds,  the  ring,  thunder,  and 
echo  of  the  actors'  voices,  all  spoke  of  the 
potency  and  beauty  of  humanity.  —  St.  Clair 
Bayfield,  in  "  The  Stage,"  London. 

Aside  from  the  sumptuousness  of  its  actual 
physical  representation  upon  the  stage,  there 
is  a  blinding  glory  in  the  very  conception  of 
the  magnificent  Masque,  "  Caliban,"  devised 
and  written  by  Percy  MacKaye. 

The  Masque  is  a  structure  of  music,  light, 
dance,  acting,  song,  scenic  values,  pantomime 
—  the  whole  builded  into  a  monument  of 
dramatic  art  that  lifts  as  the  apex  of  its  upward- 
pushing  pyramid  the  "  spoken  word."  —  Re- 
view of  Reviews. 

There  is  now  no  longer  any  question  that 
Mr.  MacKaye's  conception  of  community  art 
is  established  in  America.  —  The  New  Re- 
public. 

58 


APPENDIX 

In  the  bowl  of  the  Stadium  of  the  City  Col- 
lege of  New  York,  lighted  with  the  glare  of 
powerful  lights,  an  audience  of  15,000  people 
gathered  last  night  to  see  Percy  MacKaye's 
Shakespeare  Masque,  the  largest  dramatic  rep- 
resentation ever  given  in  this  city.  For  hours 
before  "  Caliban:  By  the  Yellow  Sands"  began 
crowds  poured  from  the  subway,  drove  up  in 
automobiles,  and  arrived  on  busses,  filling 
the  streets  and  filing  slowly  into  the  great 
open-air  theater.  They  came  from  all  parts 
of  the  city,  from  the  East  Side  and  West  Side, 
and  some  even  from  Boston  and  Philadelphia. 
Clouds  had  lifted,  revealing  a  clear,  star-lit 
night. 

Slowly  the  white  of  the  Stadium  and  the 
gleam  of  the  scaffolding  disappeared  as  black 
figures  took  their  places,  until  the  amphi- 
theater was  filled  with  a  huge  crowd,  expect- 
ant, motionless.  —  New  York  Evening  Post. 


APPENDIX 


The  Mayor's  Honorary  Committee  for  the 
Production  of  "  Caliban  "  in  New  York 

Otto  H.  Kahn,  Chairman 


Herbert  Adams 

Dr.  Felix  Adler 

Jacob  P.  Adler 

John  G.  Agar 

Robert  Aitken 

Winthrop  Ames 

Donn  Barber 

Joseph  Barondess 

Mrs.  August  Belmont 

Gutzon  Borglum 

Chancellor  Elmer  E.  Brown 

Henry  Bruere 

Arnold  Brunner 

Pres.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler 

Abraham  Cahan 

Mrs.  W'illiam  Astor  Chandler 

William  M.  Chase 

Joseph  H.  Choate 

Thomas  VV.  Churchill 

Paul  D.  Cravath 

John  D.  Crimmins 

George  Cromwell 

R.  Fulton  Cutting 

Walter  Damrosch 

R.  S.  Davis 

Henry  P.  Davison 

Robt.  W.  deForest 

Mrs.  Camden  C.  Dike 

A.  J.  Dittenhoefer 

Cleveland  H.  Dodge 

Caroline  B.  Dow 


Frank  L.  Dowling 

Mrs.  H.  Edward  Dreier 

Max  Eastman 

Samuel  H.  Evins 

John  H.  Finley 

Ned  Arden  Flood 

Daniel  C.  French 

Charles  Dana  Gibson 

Bertram  C.  Goodhue 

Rt.  Rev.  David  H.  Greer 

Jules  Guerin 

Mrs.  Daniel  Guggenheim 

Mrs.  Benjamin  Guiness 

Norman  Hapgood 

Mrs.  J.  Borden  Harriman 

William  Laurel  Harris 

Col.  George  Harvey 

Timothy  Healy 

A.  Barton  Hepburn 

Morris  Hillquit 

James  P.  Holland 

Rev.  John  Haynes  Holmes 

Frederic  C.  Howe 

Arthur  Curtiss  James 

Mrs.  Paul  Kennaday 

Dr.  J.  J.  Kindred 

Darwin  P.  Kingsley 

Lee  Kohns 

Dr.  George  F.  Kunz 

Thomas  W.  Lamont 

Dr.  Henry  M.  Leipsiger 


60 


APPENDIX 


Adolph  Lewisohn 
M.  J.  Lavelle,  V.G. 
Walter  Lippmann 
Philip  Lydig 
Clarence  H.  Mackay 
Miss  Elizabeth  Marbury 
Edwin  Markham 
Miss  Helen  Marot 
Dr.  Brander  Matthews 
Rev.  Howard  Melish 
Dr.  Appleton  Morgan 
J.  P.  Morgan 
Dr.  Henry  Moskowitz 
Adolph  S.  Ochs 
Ralph  Pulitzer 
Percy  R.  Pyne,  2d 
W.  C.  Reick 
Elihu  Root 
Edward  A.  Rumely 
Jacob  M.  Schiff 
Mortimer  L.  Schiff 
James  Speyer 


Francis  Lynde  Stetson 
Frederic  A.  Stokes 
J.  G.  Phelps  Stokes 
Josef  Stranksy 
Oscar  S.  Straus 
Augustus  Thomas 
Louis  Untermeyer 
Mrs.  William  K.  Vanderbilt 
Oswald  Garrison  Villard 
Miss  Lillian  D.  Wald 
Dr.  James  J.  Walsh 
Cabot  Ward 
J.  Alden  Weir 
Charles  D.  Wetmore 
Edward  J.  Wheeler 
F.  W.  Whitridge 
Thomas  W.  Whittle 
George  Wickersham 
William  G.  Willcox 
Dr.  Stephen  S.  Wise 
H.  J.  Wright 


CALIBAN 

BY  THE  YELLOW  SANDS 

A   Community   Masque 

By  PERCY  MACKAYE 

Music  by  ARTHUR  FARWELL 

For  the  Benefit  of 

The  Metropolitan  Chapter 
AMERICAN  RED  CROSS 

and  the 

RESERVE  OFFICERS  TRAINING  CORPS 

at  Harvard  University 

CIVIC  DIRECTORS 

D.  M.  Clagiiorn,  General  Director 

B.  S.  PouzzNER,  Assistant  General  Director 

Ernest  Harold  Baynes,  Campaign  Director 

T.  D'Arcy  Brophy,  Administrative  Director 

Hazel  MacKaye,  Community  Director 

Margaret  Wilson  Shipm. At;,  Recruiting  Director 


62 


PRODUCTION  STAFF 

Producing  the  Masque,  in  co-operation  with  the  Author 

at  the 

HARVARD  STADIUM 
June  28  to  July  9,  1917 

Producing  Director 
Frederick  Stanhope 

Designer  of  Scenes  and  Costumes 

Robert  Edmond  Jones 

Director  of  Orchestra  and  Chorus 

Arthur  Shepherd 

Director  of  Dances  Stage  Manager 

Virginia  Tanner  Irving  Pichel 

Director  of  Lighting 
Theodore  Brown 


CALIBAN  COMMITTEE  OF 
GREATER  BOSTON 

420  BOYLSTON  STREET 
Tickets:  415  Boylston  St. 

Telephone  Back  Bay  8966 

His  Excellency  Samuel  W.  McCall, 

Governor  of  Massachusetts 

Honorary  Chairman 
Honorable  James  M.  Curley,  Mayor  of  Boston 

Chairman  Go^ernor^s  Committee 
Ralph  Adams  Cram, 

Chairman 
Henry  V.  Cunningham, 

Vice-  Chairman 

Executive  Committee 

Frederick  P.  Fish,  Chairman 
George  W.  Coleman,  Vice-Chairman 
Harold  Peabody,  Secretary 
Charles  F.  Allen,  Treasurer 

Mrs.  W.  E.  Birdsall  Judge  Leveroni 

Mrs.  Charles  Burbank  I.  W.  Litchfield 

D.  M.  Claghorn  Miss  Ellen  F.  Mason 

Louis  A.  Coolidge  Fred  W.  Moore 

Ralph  Adams  Cram  James  P.  Munroe 

Henry  Cunningham  Miss  Marion  C.  Nichols 

Howard  H.  Davenport  Miss  Julia  C.  Prendergast 

Carl  Dreyfus  Daniel  L.  Prendergast 

Charles  L.  Edgar  B.  S.  Pouzzner 

Mrs.  George  R.  Fearing  George  S.  Smith 

Mrs.  W.  F.  Fitzgerald  George  W.  Tupper 

W.  T.  A.  Fitzgerald  Addison  L.  Winship 
Mrs.  A.  W.  Kaffenberg 

G4 


Finance  Committee 

N.  Penrose  Hallowell,  Chairman 

Allston  Burr  E.  V.  R.  Thayer 

W.  E.  Chick  Bowen  Tufts 

James  Jackson  Edwin  S.  Webster 
Sabin  P.  Sanger 

John  Noble,  Counsel  (of  Loring,  Coolidge  &  Noble) 
State  Street  Trust  Company,  Depository 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


UC  SOUTHt  KN  m  (,IONAL  1  IRRARY  f  AGILITY 


AA      000  337  207    5 


